


Dreaming

by msred



Series: Starting Over [15]
Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Nightmares, PTSD, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 04:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: There were enough clues for me to have known even as it was happening that it wasn’t real. This is where my brain should really have started screaming that the situation could not be real. But it didn’t. Or if it did, the screaming from my heart drowned it out. Because regardless of what my brain said, my heart knew, far too well, what it means when military officers show up at your house and tell you to “have a seat.” And my heart broke. Loudly and over and over again.





	Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Both the narrator and "He" remain unnamed. "He" is based on an actual actor (as noted in the tags), but I wanted to leave the character open to reader interpretation rather than limit the scope of the story or the reader appeal. (I also just felt weird about putting a real person's name in my writing, since all I've written before was strictly based on fiction.)

_14 months together (April, Year 3)_

_***_

_There were enough clues for me to have known even as it was happening that it wasn’t real. For one thing, I’d sold the two wingback chairs over two years earlier, but there they were. And colors and proportions just weren’t quite right; I felt a little lost in my own living room. The feeling of deja vu was far too strong for it to be a coincidence - I knew it wasn’t the first time I’d lived this particular nightmare. My brain acknowledged all these things. But something about this one was a little bit different from the start, and on a deep, visceral level, it was all happening in that moment._

_It started with the barking. Just like it had before, both in the nightmares and in the reality that had started them. That, “What are you doing intruding on my territory?” bark. But that in and of itself wasn’t all that alarming; it was the same bark she gave if the mailman closed the mailbox lid too loudly. It_ **_was_ ** _a bit disorienting that the barker herself was nowhere to be seen, but the lack of a dog didn’t stop me from closing the lid of the computer on my lap and setting it on the coffee table then going to answer the door. Just like I’d done before. At the bottom of my stoop stood two crisp, stiff uniforms. Just like they’d done before._

_Unlike all the times before, I didn’t let them in. I knew why they were there. I knew what they were going to say. So I closed the door, covered my face with my hands, and spun to press my back against the door. “No. No no no. I’m not doing this again. I’m not.”_

_Then I heard my name, in what I suppose were meant to be soothing tones. My hands flew down and my eyes flew open and there they were on my couch. Right where they always were. “You should probably have a seat.”_

_“I said no. I didn’t let you in. I know why you’re here, and it’s not ... you can’t -”_

_This is where my brain should really have started screaming that the situation_ could not be real _. But it didn’t. Or if it did, the screaming from my heart drowned it out. Because regardless of what my brain said, my heart knew, far too well, what it means when military officers show up at your house and tell you to “have a seat.” And my heart broke. Loudly and over and over again._

_“Please don’t. Please don’t do this.” I begged them, fear strangling my voice between the words. “You’ve been here before.You’ve already done this to me. Please -”_

_“Ma’am,” a hand landed on my shoulder - I didn’t know when he came to stand beside me, and I didn’t know why it was him this time when usually it was the woman - “we’re very sorry to have to tell you this, but -”_

_“No. Please no. Please don’t take him too.” I don’t know why or how I knew it was it was Him they were there for. It had never been him before. A couple times it had been one of my two best friends; most of the time it was one of my kids. It had never been him. I could feel myself starting to shake. “We’re just getting started. You can’t - please, I_ love _him.” It came out as if it would somehow make a difference._

 _“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe_ you’re _the problem.” My eyes widened. This was new. He was breaking the script. Through all the iterations, I reacted slightly differently from one to the next, depending on who they were there to take from me, but they never broke; the only thing that ever changed was the name._

_“What do you -”_

_His partner cleared her throat. She was getting them back on track. “Ma’am, we’re so sorry to inform you that your husband -”_

_“No! He’s not my husband! Not yet.” I was grasping for straws. Praying for a loophole. Maybe if they misspoke, if they said the wrong thing, called him something he wasn’t, they couldn’t actually take him._

_“And look what you’re doing to him anyway. Why can’t you wake up, see what you’ve caused?” He was doing it again, making up a whole new script._

_“I’m not … I don’t -” I could barely breathe and his hand was on my shoulder again, shaking me._

_“You have to know it’s because of you.”_

_“No. Please don’t. Please.” My voice cracked and my hands fisted until they hurt._

_“Wake up.” He scoffed, he sounded almost disgusted, as he shook harder. “It’s not me. It’s you.”_

_“No. No.”_

_The hand on my shoulder slid down to my bicep and suddenly he was behind me, his chest pressed to my back and his mouth hovering over my ear. I trembled, but otherwise I could barely move, he was holding me so tightly._

_“Come on. Wake up. It’s -”_

“-me. Baby, come on.” 

And suddenly, pressed against my back was not starched, scratchy fabric, but warm skin and solid muscle, heart pounding against my shoulder blade. And the voice at my ear dripped not with anger and spite, but with warmth, and fear. The hand on my bicep moved down my arm to my hand, balled tightly into a fist, to push strong fingers between my own and press soothing circles into my palm with his thumb.

“Wake up, okay, come on. I got you. I’m right here and I got you.”

I realized I’d been holding my breath, an unconscious attempt not to cry, and it stuttered out as I rolled over onto my back. Before I’d even managed to open my eyes - my lashes were heavy with tears - his hand was on my neck, his thumb tracing my jawline and his fingers threading into my hair. I blinked a couple times, quickly, to clear away the tears, then looked up through the dark into searching, scared eyes.

“You with me?” I could only nod. As my eyes adjusted, I saw him, almost hovering over me, his weight supported on the arm that wasn’t across my own body. I couldn’t move my left arm, he was so close, but my right hand flew to his hip, then up his side and over his ribs, across his chest, and up and over his shoulder, his neck, his cheek, and finally, to rest my fingertips on his lips. I needed to feel him, close and warm and _alive_. And as much as I hated myself for it, for giving stock to the terrible thing in my head, I needed to feel his breath across my skin.

Once I had explored him enough to assure myself that he was really there and really okay, my hand falling still on his face, he slid his hand down and behind my shoulder to bring me with him as he dropped onto his back. He settled into the mattress, but I kept going until I was fully on top of him. I don’t think that’s what he had intended, but I needed to be able to hear his heart beating, to feel it under my cheek. He only opened his legs, allowing mine to fit between them as I settled my upper body along his. I sighed and closed my eyes as he brought his arms around my back, my own lifting to wrap around his neck.

“Who was it this time?” I felt his head lift a bit off the pillow so he could speak down toward me. “Vic? Brody?” Of all my kids, those two were the subject of the dream most frequently - the daughter who had needed a mom but ended up becoming my savior, and the son who already had two amazing parents but let me be a third one anyway. His thumbs smoothed over my back as he waited for an answer. He sighed when he didn’t get one. “It must’ve bad, you’re still shaking.” I became more aware of my body and felt my fingers digging into his shoulders on either side of his neck; if I could have seen them, I would probably have found my knuckles to be white. I forced my hands to relax, to loosen their grip. When he tightened his arms around my back and drew me tighter against him, I realized I was shivering, even as his t-shirt, which I’d pulled from the floor where I’d thrown it hours earlier as we stumbled toward the bed, clung, sweaty, to my skin.

“You don’t have to talk about it. But you can.” As if he knew that I needed to feel the warmth of his skin against mine, he pushed one hand under the hem of his shirt to the center of my back and worked the other under my hair to cup the back of my neck. Maybe he did know. Or maybe it was just an extension of the physicality of his nature. I’d never known anyone who needed to touch people the way he did. His hand on a friend’s arm when he told a story, a clap on the shoulder as he laughed, a hug for any and everyone who would willingly accept it. And I’d never realized before him just how affected I could be by touch, how much it would comfort me, ground me, make me feel safe. I’d always been a hugger - one of the many things that contributed to my “mom” persona at school - but with him it had become so much more. If we were together, it was almost guaranteed he was touching me in some way, and his touch allowed me to feel things I sometimes didn’t give myself permission to feel. His fingers woven through mine as we walked the dogs reminded me to smile, even after a long day. His hand on my knee in the car or sitting at dinner or a brewery with friends assured me that I had a partner. His forehead pressed to mine in the middle of a moment of stress or anxiety or depression grounded me and quieted the noise in my brain. And his arm heavy across my shoulders, fingers in my hair or dancing across my arm or tickling at my side, when we both finally settled onto the couch at the end of a long day told me I was home. So maybe he knew at that moment that I really, really needed to feel his skin against mine, or maybe he was just comforting me the best way he knew how.

Whether or not he really understood why, and how much, I needed his touch, he kept his hands pressed to my skin. I could tell when my own hands were becoming uncomfortably tight on his shoulders, because he would massage the back of my neck lightly and rub small circles across my back. And when the shivering would pick up, sometimes to a shudder, he only pressed me tighter against him until it passed. After what must have been many, many minutes of laying that way in the near total darkness, silent except for the occasional stuttering breath working its way up from my chest and through my throat, he started to hum. I felt him press his head back into the pillow, and I imagined his eyes fell closed right about the time he started tapping out the rhythm of the song on my skin with his fingertips. Or maybe he was playing imaginary piano chords, making them up as he went.

I’d been surprised earlier that night when, after he and the kids stopped teasing me about the absolute randomness of my phone’s music library, he pulled me in - right arm around my lower back and left hand clasping my right one - and not only started to dance me across the patio in time to the music but also leaned down to sing the words close to my ear. And when he hummed the same song as he held me through the final aftershocks of my panic attack, I kind of melted. Again. It’s not like the song could take away the pain or the anxiety the dream had caused or cure the PTSD my therapist kept telling me I was dealing with, but much like his touch, it grounded me. It helped remind me of where I was, of what reality was. And remembering that allowed me to relax. 

By the time he finished, I’d stopped shivering altogether. And I hadn’t had to force my hands to relax once while he hummed. I unwound my arms from his neck and used his shoulders for leverage to pull myself up until I could rest my head on the pillow next to his, even as I stayed on top of him. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I didn’t exactly care. He turned to press his forehead to mine and his eyes darted back and forth between my own. 

“You back?” He used the hand he’d kept on my neck to reach up and massage the back of my head. “How’s it sounding in there?”

“Quieter,” I whispered.

He nodded and whispered back. “Quieter is good.”

“Thank you.”

“I got you.” He untangled his arm from the shirt I wore and wrapped both arms high around my back. “I’ve always got you.” I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and nodded. “Hey,” he finally said after he let me lay that way for a few more minutes, “do you wanna change? You got … I think you were sweating a lot, when … while you were sleeping.”

“Oh, yeah. I probably should.” I started to push myself up off of him, but he held me close and rolled us so I was back where I’d started. Still, he held me. Even as he pushed himself up to sitting and looked down at me, he moved his hand from my shoulder down my arm until his thumb rubbed over my knuckles.

“I’ll get it. I’ll get the tv too, if you want.”

“Sure,” I watched him climb over me, picking up the tv remote from my nightstand as he went to my dresser, then shifted my eyes to the ceiling.

“Alright,” the bed shifted under me and I pulled my eyes from the shadows cast by the television. “I didn’t lose you again, did I?” I shook my head and tried to smile. The truth was, I had drifted. Not to sleep, just into blankness. He reached down to push my bangs off my forehead. “Good. Here, let me help you.” He laid the t-shirt he’d pulled from my dresser - another one of his, though he didn’t comment on that - on his lap and reached for my hands.

“You know I can -”

“Excuse me,” he grabbed my hands and pulled me up, just a little bit abruptly, so we were face to face, “what part of ‘I got you’ don’t you understand?” He smirked at me and darted forward, pressing one quick kiss to my lips before pulling back and grabbing the hem of the shirt I was wearing to pull it carefully over my head. 

While he looked down at the shirt in his lap, unfolding it and laying it out so he could, most likely, pull it over my head for me, I reached for him and rested my hands on his forearms. “I don’t know what I would do without you, now.” His little smile as he looked up at me through his lashes told me that he took it as me being wistful, that he probably thought I was forcing myself to be light-hearted. I didn’t tell him how deadly serious I was.

“Yeah, well, you’re stuck with my ass, so …” he smirked, shrugged, and helped me pull the shirt on before scooting around me and pulling me back down against the pillows with him.

We watched a full episode of _Friends_ on a channel that would probably be re-running it all night before either of us spoke again. A few times I figured he had fallen back to sleep, then he would laugh at something, or lean down to kiss the top of my head, or shift his arm to keep it from falling asleep under my weight (though every time I tried to move off of him, to give him some space, he only pulled me in closer). As the sounds of The Rembrandts filled the room, signalling the start of a new episode, I turned and tucked my head under his chin, my hand falling to his chest over his heart.

“It was you. This time.” 

His chest swelled with breath, a breath that washed over me as he exhaled slowly. He reached across me for the remote and muted the television, flickering light still coloring the room, but no sound accompanying it. “Baby, I’m … _so_ sorry. Shit. I’m so sorry. But I’m here. I’m right here.” 

I repeat myself a lot, I always have. It’s sort of an anxious tic. He’d started doing the same back to me whenever I was nervous or stressed. 

“I knew it right away,” I continued. He pressed his lips to the top of my head and brought his hand to my lower back. “I opened the door and as soon as I saw them, I knew. Before they even said anything. I tried to keep them out, but then they were inside anyway. They called you my husband and I corrected them - I thought I could protect you by pointing out that they made a mistake - but it didn’t matter. I begged them. I told them how much I love you and I _begged_ them -” I stopped to catch my breath. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but I was speeding up, each word rushing out faster than the last, almost tumbling over one another. I worried he would try to interject - I wasn’t finished yet and I was afraid I’d lose my nerve if he said anything - but he only rubbed circles on my back with his fingertips and continued breathing into my hair. “I begged, but they said … He blamed me. He told me it was my fault.” He still didn’t speak, but he inhaled sharply, almost a gasp, and it was his turn to tense his fingers against me. “He said it happened because of me. Because I love you. Like I’m ...”

“Alright, c’mere.” He cut me off, which was really okay, because by that point I didn’t know where I was going anymore anyway. I didn’t have anything to say that I hadn’t already said. He pulled away from me to sit up fully, his back against the headboard, then urged me up with him. He hooked his hands behind my knees and draped my legs across his lap, pulling me across the mattress until we sat at a 90 degree angle. “I _really_ want to sit here and promise you that nothing’s ever going to happen to me and that one day, 60 years from now, we’re both going to die in our sleep, holding hands. But we both know that’s not a promise I can make, and I’m not going to lie to you.”

I looked at him more openly and freely than I had since he’d woken me. Bluish light danced across his features and I tried to memorize the way he looked in it. A lot of people would look washed out, sallow, sickly. He didn’t. His already blue eyes seemed to glow, and the shadows accentuated his cheekbones and strikingly sharp jawline (and I loved the beard he preferred to wear, but it was impossible not to appreciate that jaw when he did have to shave). He was - is - _beautiful_ . Everyone in the world knew it. He knew it, deep down, but he never used it to his advantage - even now he doesn’t. Sure, there’s a certain knowledge that he wouldn’t have had the opportunities he did, not early on, anyway, if he didn’t look like _that_ , but he never let that be enough. And he was - is - so good at what he does. He has a natural talent for it, of course, but he also works so hard and educates himself so much. And on top of being good at his craft, he was - is - just _good_. Kind and generous and humble and -

God, I loved him so much. This wasn’t a revelation, of course. I’d been in love with him since the moment I gave myself permission to be, roughly a year before, and if anything it had only increased (it continues to increase). And that had been the only thing I could think about hours earlier when he’d stopped singing into my ear and lowered himself to one knee. But in that moment, in the quiet semi-darkness with his hands warm on the outsides of my thighs and his forehead coming to rest against mine, it swelled in me and I loved him so much it physically hurt. It was no wonder I’d had the dream about him. Truthfully, the real surprise was that it hadn’t happened sooner, though I guess the proposal was the trigger.

He continued, and his voice called me back out of my head and there into the room with him. “But I do promise that as long as I _am_ here, you’ve got me on your team. We’re partners, period. That means when you have a bad day, or night, I’m going to help you through it. It means when you have something to celebrate, I hope I’m the first one you tell. And it means that I will never take unnecessary risks without thinking of you first.” He let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes, a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “No more crazy fast cars -”

“You’re not a car guy.” I managed a small smile and he returned a slightly larger one.

“- I’ll make sure to cover myself in orange when I head out into the woods -”

“You don’t hunt.” My smile grew the smallest bit and he pushed forward to press his lips against mine.

“- and my stunt team will become my new best friends.”

“You’ve always loved your stunt guys.”

“I actually mean that one,” he said as he pulled back to look me in the eye. “Yeah, I’ve always … embraced and appreciated the talent and, and expertise of my stunt teams, but I’ve also pushed myself more than I had to at times. Call it machismo, ego, adrenaline-seeking, whatever you want, but I’ve done some shit I probably shouldn’t have, that I wasn’t really equipped for. I’m not saying I’ll never do another stunt in my life, but I promise you I’ll be smarter. I promise I’ll always remember that I’m part of a team when I make decisions.”

I wanted to thank him, to tell him how much that meant to me, how it made my heart squeeze a little tighter for him. But, much like me, he didn’t always take compliments well, and he would probably have shrugged it off. Besides, I think he already knew. So instead, I said, “I think you just wrote the first draft of your vows.”

His whole face scrunched and he chuckled before bringing his hands to my face to pull me in for a longer kiss than we’d shared since he’d woken me. I hooked my own hands over his wrists so that he wouldn’t pull away once the kiss ended. 

I kissed him until my heart started to beat faster then pulled back just enough to be able to focus on his eyes, still holding his hands to my face. “I can’t do it. What we talked about earlier, I can’t.”

His brow furrowed as he looked back at me. “Can’t do what? I really need you to be more specific.” He didn’t say the rest - that he wondered if I was saying I wouldn’t marry him - but I read the anxiety on his face. 

“No,” I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, that’s not what -” I sighed. “I can’t be a long-distance wife. I can’t have … _visitation rights_ to my husband, two months in the summer and a week here and there during the school year. I can’t do that.” I felt him relax, his hands sliding down to rest at the juncture of my neck and shoulders, and it had the effect of relaxing me as well. “I thought I could. I didn’t want to, to _suffocate_ you, to come in and take over your life. Besides, I have a life here too. I have my job and my kids and it seemed to make sense. You’re so busy anyway, when you’re working, it didn’t seem like it would matter if I’m not there when you finally make it home just to sleep. But it will, it does.” I was doing it again, picking up steam as I spoke. “I’ll miss my kids, but they’re all starting to leave here anyway. And I can get a teaching job in L.A. or Boston, whichever you want, whichever you think makes more sense to kind of be ‘home base.’”

“Or you can not.”

“What?”

“It’s not like we need your income. And don’t - I don’t mean that offensively, or, or to dismiss the importance of what you do, but we both know my finances aren’t a problem. You haven’t been happy in your job for a while, that’s what you’ve been telling me, right? The kids, _your_ kids, have been the only thing holding you there, and like you just said, they’re moving on. It’s okay for you to do the same. I know you don’t want to do _nothing_ , but you can find a shelter or an after-school program or an advocacy group doing important work that you care about and you can volunteer with them.” I must have brightened at that, because he smiled then pushed my hair behind my ear on the left side and turned his hand until he could lock his fingers with mine. “And _suffocating me_? As far as I’m concerned, we can call a moving company tomorrow. I want you to be where I am.” He brought my hand to his lips. “It’s kinda why I asked you to marry me.” He smirked and I had to laugh, just a little. 

It would be overly simplified, inaccurate, really, to say that he fixed me. That’s not how love works, it’s not how depression or anxiety works, it’s not how anything works. I can’t even say that _I_ fixed me, or that any fixing was done at all, or even that it needed to be. I was never broken or damaged, though it took me a long time to figure that out. But I was in pain, and I was struggling with how to make the person I always thought I was, and that I would be, fit into my new reality. And he helped with that. He reminded me of what it feels like to have a partner, and, probably more importantly, that I was worthy of time, and attention, and love. 

**Author's Note:**

> All stories in this collection will be an anthology of connected one-shots that exist within the same universe; they may or may not follow chronological order. They may eventually be reorganized into novel-format, but that would be quite a way down the road.


End file.
